Mirage - Axe Mirage

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Open World, Open World General and [[|]]

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on January 19, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A build that focuses on Confusion and Torment. This build has relatively high base DPS that can be amplified further if fighting enemies that attack quickly. It is simple to pick up but very hard to master.

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Skill Bar

Axe/Torch

X/Pistol

Utility

Weapon Variants

• Staff - Long range kiting
• Focus - Utility offhand; allows you to group mobs.

Skill Variants

Healing Skills

• False Oasis - additional mirage cloaks

Utility Skills

• Illusionary Ambush - This skill is critical when chain-farming mobs, such as at the Kourna Battlefield or Bitterfrost Frontier. Use it to prevent your clones from constantly resetting.
• Sand Through Glass - Strong damage option
• Crystal Sands - more DPS and mirage cloaks.
• Mantra of Resolve - if conditions are a problem.
• Feedback - to reflect projectiles.
• Portal Entre - can be useful, especially when zerging.

Elite Skills

• Time Warp - strong option when soloing bosses

Equipment

Run this for higher DPS and higher burst.

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

Hands
Viper

Legs
Viper

Feet
Viper

Backpiece
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Accessory
Viper

Amulet
Viper

Ring
Viper

Ring
Viper

Axe
Viper

Torch
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

x
Viper

Pistol
Viper

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

It is never recommended to replace either of your sigils.

Weapons

• Staff/Staff - You can run two staves, both with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy and Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting for better kiting potential. For more information on this, see Build:Mirage_-_Condi_Staff

Gear

• Trailblazer - trades some damage for a massive amount of defense
• Celestial - trades damage for defense, retains some strike-base burst compared to Trailblazer

Runes

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Trapper - use 5 of these + 1 Black Diamond as a budget replacement for Nightmare
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Elementalist - higher strike damage, lower peak DPS
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Adventurer - fun hybrid option

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• , - dps
• - dps if using gear with high toughness

Usage

Damage

The basic gist of this build is to use your weapon skills while dodging and then using specific shatter combinations when you have the clones to do so.

• Spam dodge and use mirrors to trigger your Ambush attacks as often as possible. Remember that Ambush has a 1s internal cooldown.
• Shatter when you have 3 clones that you can -instantly- replace. Axe 2, Lingering Thoughts, can help refresh your clones. Thanks to Deceptive Evasion, dodging will also generate new clones for you. If needed, you can take Mirror Images or Self-Deception to increase clone generation.
• Your shatters do not all line up. As such, we use a priority system to determine which shatters to use.

1. Cry of Frustration - This is your bread-and-butter shatter. Always prioritize shattering this with 3 clones.
2. Mind Wrack - This shatter deals great damage in the Viper setup, so prioritize it second.
3. Diversion - This shatter doesn't do much for us, but it does grant us some Fury. You can use this shatter with 0 clones directly after one of the shatters above.
4. Distortion - This shatter grants is some nice i-frames and also grants us Regeneration, which is critical for our DPS. Prioritize this shatter last. It is perfectly fine to shatter this with 0 clones directly after one of the first two shatters.

In short: F2 > F1. After one of those, Shatter either F3 or F4 with 0 clones.

• Use your phantasms off cooldown.
• Always have three clones up at all times. This is critical for your DPS.
• Weapon swap any time you're missing a lot of energy.

Defense

• Use Jaunt to cleanse conditions.
• Abuse your Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy or Sigil of Superior Sigil of Stamina for frequent dodges.
• Sand Through Glass - can provide a strong stunbreak.
• You dodge often so use that to your advantage. Your dodges are: Axes of Symmetry, Sand Through Glass, Distortion, going through your Mirage Mirror, and of course your default evade skill.
• A good alternative to evade attacks is to teleport out of it by using Jaunt, Blink or Axes of Symmetry.

Crowd Control

• Interrupts: Chaos Storm, Magic Bullet
• Diversion
• Magic Bullet
• Phantasmal Mage
• Signet of Domination (as a last resort)